


welcome home my hero

by indigo_penstrokes



Category: Bandstand - Oberacker/Oberacker & Taylor
Genre: And kinda short, Gen, its a little sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-20
Updated: 2019-07-20
Packaged: 2020-07-09 02:34:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19880170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indigo_penstrokes/pseuds/indigo_penstrokes
Summary: jo finds herself on the same train platform a few weeks after morgan came home, this time it's to meet her best friend.





	welcome home my hero

Jo didn't quite know what to think when she got the letter from Jimmy, it wasn't like they hadn't written a lot during the war. They did quite the opposite, sending letters almost every week. But this letter was different. It was short and almost bitter, giving hardly more than a date, time and a train number. But it also spoke of an attack. The sinking of a ship. Jo had stopped reading then, tears in her eyes, making it impossible to read more.

“Oh Jimmy where are you.” She bit her cheek, trying to contain her nerves as train after train came into the station before promptly leaving again. The station wasn’t its usual bustling hub which only added to her nerves.

It was mind numbing, and maybe she shouldn't have gotten to the station as early as she did.

Her watch told her she still had a few minutes until Jimmy's train was to arrive. She picked at the buttons that ran down the side of her hip. It felt like waiting for Morgan all over again. Except this was so much worse. She didn’t know what to expect. Would Jimmy be sullen and quiet like so many of the returning soldiers that came in the Wisp? Would he still be the same man she had befriended all those years ago, because seven years did really feel like a lifetime. There was so much she didn’t know and it was eating her from the inside out, manifesting in hands that shook and eyes that felt moments away from tears.

It seemed that she wouldn't have to wait much longer to find out because the train she was waiting for pulled into the station hissing. 

When she scanned the crowd and couldn't find the familiar head of blond hair a stone started to sink through her stomach. It felt like it would pull her down with it. _Had something happened? Did the letter come too early?_

_Had the wreck done more damage than he had let on?_

But worried were silenced suddenly. Jimmy was standing right in front of her, hat clutched in one hand and a single bag in the other. He looked tired, blue purple bags under his eyes and a hardly concealed frown on his face. He looked as though he’d been through Hell, and Jo didn’t doubt that he had.

“Jo.” He sounded so broken it tore at Jo’s heart as he stepped closer, almost as if he didn’t believe she was really there.

“Oh Jimmy,” she said softly, all but throwing herself onto him in a bear hug. Oh how she missed hugging her best friend. How she missed him, period. 

He dropped his bag almost instantly, the canvas hitting the ground with a solid thud, his arms then wrapping around her like a vice. Jo buried her face into his shoulder, ignoring the way his navy blues scratched her cheeks. Jimmy tilted his chin down, nestling it into her hair, as if to shield his best friend from all the horrors of that he’d seen of the world.

“I missed you so much,” Jo mumbled, tears choking her voice as she hugged him impossibly harder. A small part of her mind was thankful Morgan wasn’t there to see her so shaken, but the larger was just so relieved to have Jimmy back.

“I didn't think I was gonna make it.” The words slipped out like water, flowing past his lips without a thought. She felt a tear hit the back of her neck, quickly followed by another and another. 

They stood like that for an eternity, just holding each other after so long apart. People passing by probably thought them sweethearts, but the pair didn’t care. What they had was worth so much more than other people’s opinions. 

“I’m glad you did, that you made it,” Jo said finally able to form words around her tears. She pulled herself from the spot she’d claimed and looked up at Jimmy.

“I’m not sure if I am.” He said it with such sorrow that if her heart hadn’t been cracked before it definitely was now; spiderweb fractures creeping their way into far off corners. 

“Jimmy.” She couldn’t bring herself to say anything else, and even then it can out softer than a whisper. An apology sat ready on her lips without the energy to speak it.

“Please don’t say you’re sorry, you couldn’t have done anything.” He wiped away a stray tear with the heel of his hand, hitting his glasses in the process. “No one could’ve.” 

“I won’t say that then, but just know if you ever want to talk about it.” _If you want to talk about him._ “I’m always here.” She hoped that was enough. Sometimes just knowing people were there for you was enough to make horrible things bearable, and it would be like the returning of a favor. 

“Thank you Jo, you’re really something else.” And for the first time in a while Jimmy cracked a tiny, barely there smile. His face was still tinged red from crying and the lines of his face were still tired, but that smile was the start of things getting better.

Jo just nodded, picking up his dropped luggage. “Enough tears, let’s get you out of here. Do you want to come to mine, Morgan probably has something amazing cooking for dinner?” 

Jimmy took the bag back, “I think that would be nice.” 

They didn’t speak again until they made it all the way to Jo’s carolina blue truck and had turned onto the busy street outside Union Terminal.

“You would have loved him you know.” Jimmy took a breath, letting it out slowly. “He was a writer, always leaving me little stories and poems.” 

“I’m sorry you lost him.” She felt it was the only appropriate thing to say, her gaze was still fixed on the street and the drivers who didn’t seem to know how to drive. 

“I am too.” Jimmy turned to look out the window at a city he thought he wouldn’t see again. 

The sun had started to cast the buildings in gold, the light reflecting off of windows like a sunset off the sea. It was all so achingly familiar that his heart hurt just a little. 

“I am too."

**Author's Note:**

> as always comments will make my day and the tumblr is @ad-astra-de-luna so feel free to drop by there


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